Friday night the guys were invited to a cheap wet-skidpan night at Eastern Creek. Fun had by all, I’m led to believe, until Tyler’s wheels were stolen. 2 of his 18″ Prouds he’d just got for his birthday. Un-psyched to say the least. I got there when skidpan finished up, and we went to the Formule 1 motel, cheapest of the cheap, which was ridiculous. Carpark mechanics, wierdos coming and going from the motel late in the night, and 8 guys getting rowdy in a room designed for 3. Athan ended up wedged between the wall and his bed, since it couldn’t handle us turning it into a jumping castle.

Minimal Sleep later, we got up and got ready for Maccas brekky and skids.

Skids were good. Not too many people there, lots of runs, lots of popped tyres.
BMW Club had a super sprint on which we could see a lot of through the day, including this E34 5-series, which decided to barrel-roll off a grass bank about 4 times. Driver was safe, but his complete dash was about 20m from the car and the rear springs further still. Devvo

Driver of the day: Tyler. Loads of smoke for an N/A

Got a call later on from a friend who’d been at the track the night before, who’d found Tyler’s wheels. A friend of his had nicked them, so he went around to his friend’s house, punched him in the face and took the wheels back. Gnarly.

Our buddy Biggie from Fast Fours invited us out to display in the Real Street display at Motorex, on Sunday. Unwashed S13’s + KE70 went well opposite 2SUS VL’s, haha! Had a good time riding BMXs, eating Maccas, and hammering tyler’s car in front of the hideous Queen St cars, but the best part of the day was Wes’ tent while Bro-mobiles got rained down on. Can’t wait for Autosalon!

We’ve wired up 2 of these now, one fully working, the other is on a non running car, so it’s hard to say, but they’re done exactly the same, so should be sweet.

Haven’t wired either car with the far right relay (3) yet, this one has been put in to safeguard the button from doing anything when the car is off. The ignition wire is only activated in the ‘on’ and ‘start’ positions of the ignition barrel. You only have to turn the key to ‘on’ for the button to work. When current is running through “Ignition” it activates the relay, which closes the circuit for the button, so that whole circuit works, otherwise the relay holds the circuit open.

For the button here we have used some street-fighter style illuminated temporary push-buttons, customised by Billy. All 3 relays are 30A SPST relays. I’ve labelled which terminal each wire connects to on standard relays too. Wires were simply spliced and junctioned into whichever was necessary, under the dash. We were able to buy relays that allowed to be set up as normally open and normally closed, you may have to specify that you need two ‘normally open’ relays and one normally closed. It may be worth fusing the 12v+ const with a 30A fuse too.

We also collected a number of spade connectors, small earthing ring terminals a couple of metres of speaker wire for the button and button illumination, and a couple of metres of red wire of a similar gauge to the wires we’re splicing into under the dash. All components should be able to be neatly tucked under the dash, and we placed the button in the cigarette lighter position, but could also go on the dash.

From the S13 workshop manual I found outline for which wires have power supplied at which positions. They are as follows:

Since the key had to be turned to ‘on’ to disengage steering lock, we only had to make the changes from ‘on’ to suit ‘start’. This meant turning off accessories temporarily, and temporarily supplying power to starter motor and starter signal. The top relay (1) allows ‘accessories’ to run usually, until the start button is depressed, which opens the ‘accessories’ circuit. The lower relay (2) is usually open, until the button is pressed, which temporarily powers ‘starter motor’ and ‘starter signal’.

All black wires are earths. For illumination to the switch, a handy spot is the gearbox boot screws, and for the relays, there are plenty of spots you can screw the terminals to bare metal under the dash. For illumination of the light, we are currently getting 12v from the accessories line which runs into the stereo (also called 12v switching) which is on whenever accessories are on, meaning light is illuminated while driving. Ideally we will try to run it off something like the ‘check engine’ light on the dash, which will turn on in the ‘on’ position, then turn off when the car is running.

Will throw pics and video up some time soon.

The same design can be applied to installing Accessories and Ignition switches, to eliminate the need for the ignition barrel. Each appropriate circuit just has to be supplied the 12v.

Now that my daily driver is basically paid off, when funds allow, I’ll be getting myself a granny spec KE70, and embarking on my first project car. Mad keen! On a boring and lengthy bus trip home from Uni one day, I came up with plans for my dream KE70 build. Thus far they are: